Switzerland

There has been an explosion of equity block trades in Europe this week, led by a sovereign wealth fund, plus several new capital deals. The IPO market is also busy, with several new deals launched.

After selling Sfr1.5bn of UBS shares on Monday night, GIC, the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund, returned with another equity block trade on Tuesday – this time to sell a stake in Straumann Holding, the Swiss maker of dental implants.

GIC, one of Singapore’s two sovereign wealth funds, has sold a chunk of the stake in UBS it acquired before the financial crisis, through a mandated block trade led by UBS’s own investment bank.

Lonza, the Swiss pharmaceuticals group, has completed its Sfr2.25bn rights issue, to part-finance its takeover of Capsugel, the US maker of medicine capsules, from KKR.

Martin Egan has been elected chair of the International Capital Market Association at the trade body's annual general meeting in Luxembourg, replacing Spencer Lake.

Maroan Maizar, the former country head for Deutsche’s capital markets businesses in Switzerland, has joined Kepler Cheuvreux to work on Swiss corporate finance.

Nestlé made its second visit of 2017 to the Eurodollar bond market on Tuesday, issuing a $300m five year that it managed to price 19bp tighter than a similar deal in January.

UBS delivered a 24% return on equity in its investment bank for the first quarter — without the aid of the flattering equity attribution model analysts have criticised in the past. The bank revamped equity attribution this year so that corporate centre does less of the heavy lifting, meaning a 26% increase in equity attributed to the investment bank.

Shares in Lonza, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, closed 3.8% higher on Wednesday after it launched its Sfr2.25bn rights issue to partly finance its acquisition of Capsugel from KKR, having secured approval from its shareholders at its annual general meeting on Tuesday.

Credit Suisse shares closed 2.7% higher on Wednesday after the bank confirmed what had been widely expected: it will conduct its second rights issue in 18 months, and scrap its plan to float its Swiss Universal Bank.

Credit Suisse beat analysts’ expectations and posted a net profit in the first quarter of 2017, while the bank finally ended uncertainty about its capital position, and the possible IPO of its Swiss unit, by announcing plans for a Sfr4bn rights issue.

This week, two large, highly anticipated Swiss rights issues have gone live. One to end capital concerns, and the other to finance an acquisition.